CSB Seminar: Professor Ian Scott, Senior Scientist, Developmental & Stem Cell Biology, SickKids, Associate Professor, Department of Molecular Genetics, University of Toronto

Host:  Prof. Ashley Bruce <ashley.bruce@utoronto.ca>

We are interested in studying how the cardiac lineage is first specified and then elaborated during the earliest events of vertebrate development. Towards this end, we have been examining the zebrafish grinch mutant, which lacks all cardiac progenitors. This analysis has shown us that the GPCR encoded by the aplnrb gene fine-tunes Nodal signalling during gastrulation, resulting in a loss of myocardial progenitor specification and/or migration. To further analyze the cardiac progenitor lineage, we have applied single cell RNA-seq and ATAC-seq approaches to define novel genes and regulatory elements specific to this lineage. In preliminary work, this has revealed novel genes and conserved regulatory elements for future analysis. Following cardiac lineage specification, we have found that Hey2, a transcription factor, plays a key role in holding proliferation and cardiac contribution of second heart progenitors in check. Intriguingly, retinoic acid (RA) signalling restricts hey2 expression both during cardiac development and adult cardiac regeneration, suggesting that cardiac progenitor development may be re-deployed during adult cardiac repair.

Video Conferencing at UTM (DV3138) & UTSc (MW229)